I picked up the new passport for Louisville's Urban-Bourbon Trail this week. It is a very nice item with adescription of each of the eight bourbon bars to be visited and a place to take tasting notes for the bourbon drank at the visit. It also has adecription of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail and the distilleries involved.

After having all of the Bourbon Bars stamp your passport, you can send it in for a free T-Shirt. The Tourist Commission will return your passport with your T-Shirt.

On a side note, The Bourbon Society is thinking about making the Urban-Bourbon Trail a Saturday event this summer by renting a bus and going to all eight bars in one night.

I know that Barturtle and a bunch of guys from the Bourbondrinker site did the Urban Bourbon Passport in two days - 7 bars in the first day and the Bourbons Bistro on the next day. They all seemed to enjoy it and I do believe they walked to all of the bars except Bourbon's Bistro. This is a very do-able experience while in Louisville. I hope some of them write about the experience.

It was a great time. For the band in the Bourbon Crusade it started a little like this – warning, long story:

I landed about 2:30PM on Saturday and meet Bucc58 at the airport. We rented a big old Jeep Commander and met Birdman and Barturtle at the Seelbach.

At that point we shared in Birdman's FR120th & and newly possed FR Super Premium, Barturtle's WTKS Bourbon Society bottle, and my WLW Centennial Julio’s Version. About 2-3 drinks in we moved to the Seelbach bar downstairs.

At the Seelbach we have 1-2 drinks each, got to try a couple new ones - Rathskeller Rye and Bourbon. Bucc had his PVW 23, bird hit a couple as well as our trusty tour guide BarTurtle.

Now this is where the walking (and whining) started.

We hot footed it over to the Jockey Silks Bourbon Bar and had quite a few half drinks to taste as many as we could (it was a crusade you see).... I think I "shared" about 6 drinks with bucc (the official Bourbon Crusade Dump Bucc'et knocking them down for the final count). A couple that I had that are not on the BE list were the Original Barrel and Bear BIB. I posted reviews of the others. Lots of Older bourbons here. But many of them had the taste of older bourbons. Open way to long... A must visit though. The towns best selection of older bourbons.

Then it was on to dinner at the Park Place on Main. Good selection where we had the 05 Fall Staggs. Last of the bottle and hit was quite harsh, but they gave me a phat pour that dump bucc'et nailed at the end for me. Bucc had the Vintage Bourbon flight 17. 21. and 23yr. Good selection and a good value for the bourbon. May have been the best per pour value of the trail. We had a great dinner that was extremely filling. Damn near slowed us to a crawl we were so stuffed. A nice bonus was the near full (missing one drink) bottle of Stagg Spring 05 KY only Stagg, that they sold me for $75 (whoo-hoo).

On our slow way back toward the Seelbach, we hit Proof on Main. Nice bar, ritzier crowd. Great bar tenders though. Fun chatting with them for 1-2 drinks.... I started to slow at this point (no drinks) so that I could be "legal" to go and get Devin. After that feast and an extra hour, definitely below the limit…

Our Journeys then took us to the Maker's Mark Bar. Bucc and company will have to fill y'all in here, this is when I left to go get Devin and took him on a trip around Louisville by accident... dee-dee-dee. The GPS I used had a hiccup and took us the right direction, then took us off to the outskirts, before taking us back... 10 min ride turned into 40... we saw a lot of the back area of Louisville though .. err - MM has a very loud crowd down on 4th, but this is not the 4th street story yet... that comes later, much later.... Toght the remaining Crusades said the guy next to them got a double shot of VB 23 in a shot, hammered it back and proceeded to share it with the Knights hahah-hahaha sorry I “missed” that experience

After I picked up Devin we drove rather that walked to the last two of the night... folks were whining big about the distances.. so off to the Bar at BLU. Now this is a must visit place, but skip the bourbon if you can. Highest price, least value per pour, but you have to see the art in this place. Can't wait to take my wife. The whole damn place is a trip. Very, VERY yuppie... but a must see for your stamp in the Urban Bourbon Trail and the craziness..... we bailed here early after a $24 tab for 1 Knobb and 1 FRSB...

Then over to the Brown. Nice place. Very small bar.. very small. 4-5 people deep for the smallest bar in town. We found their ER101 on the shelf they did not have and we (DZell, Birdman, BarTurtle and I) got a glass - $10 a pop - ouch and Bucc got a pint of JB Black - for $10... now that was a value (no kidding a pint glass with ice and JBB to the top)... this is where the bucc really kicked in.

After those, we headed back to the Seelbach, had a few glasses of the above mentioned bourbons until about 3:15AM when security came and told us that we were being a tad bit loud... like the entire floor was pissed at us.. .opps... so we went down for a last call.

This is where the 4th street live fun started. There is a night club above the 1st floor bars. Since the close doors at 4:15, I talked the bouncers into letting us in for free... good folks.. then we had some WT 101 and hit the dance floor (at least Bucc and I did - the others are voyeurs)... out of no where, this drop dead HOTTY came up to Bucc, grabbed him and proceeded to fornicate (just about) on the dance floor with him (Devin has pictures ... no kidding) for about 10 min. Then after she stumbled off, another came up and did the same thing for 2-3 min... AMAZING... we then danced until 4:15 when the kicked us all out.

The crusade then took us to White Castle. Barturtle took his leave and the four remaining true Knight's of the Bourbon Crusade proceeded over and got a suitcase of white Castle Burgers and some chicken... headed back to the room and mowed through those 34 burgers... until about 5:30AM when Bucc and Bird moved on to sleep time... Devin and I cleaned the room a little and crashed around 6AM to start the tour process about 10:AM...

Long trip out to MM. Grabbed some Arby's and continued the long, slow (or not so slow ) trip down single lane roads (that 2-ways of traffic travel) that twists back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth, and up and down, and back and forth... pour Bucc in the far back where it is the highest and hottest in the car did the speaking in techni-color discussion back in the forest at MM before the tour....

Short story for the tours is we went to MM (do not go on Sunday's - just don't do it), dipped some bottles and headed to HH. Got some goodies and headed out to the Seelbach to pick up Everman.

We met up with Ryan from Julio's and his crew, Everman and we were 10 deep in the joined Knighthood on the way to the Bourbon Bistro. We meet up with Sir BourbonV and had a wonderful mean and lots of good bourbon. We have a great “supper” picture to share where our Devine Veach is center stage … … We then sat out on the back porch and consumed many-a-bourbon, told stories and had a kick ass time...

Headed back to the hotel and this is where your humble narrator’s story ends... I caught a 6AM flight to Orlando for Work and the rest of those dirty bastards had a blast tasting 20 barrels at BT along with a killer tour of the facilities... lucky-dogs

The "Last Supper" pose was spun's idea. The fun part was the server who took the photograph was into the re-creation of the artwork as much or even more so than spun_cookie! It was a great time and the food and bourbon was plentiful.

I am almost sorry I missed the other 7 bars the night before. I had a bourbon tasting I had to do and when they called me at about 3:00, I still had too much to do to get ready for it. I hope next time they come to town, I am free on the night they all arrive.

I feel so fortunate to be one of the ones seated next to Mike. And I am actually paying attention. Mike, did we sway you on how you will name the last chapter in your book? Oh and for the record, Spuns stories about me -- All Lies and all pics were photo shopped!